Database And Data Storage — small scale stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Managed Relational DB - Postgres Primary
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Free: 0.5GB storage, 1 project, 100h compute; Launch $19/mo includes 10GB storage + 100h compute + $0.35/hr extra compute + $1.50/GB storage over. Supabase Free: 500MB DB, 2GB BW. RDS db.t4g.micro $16/mo + $0.115/GB-mo storage + $0.095/GB backup. Overage: $0.10/GB egress.
Managed Relational DB - MySQL / MySQL-Compatible
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsPlanetScale Free: 5GB storage, 10M reads/mo, 1 prod branch; Scaler $39/mo + $1.50/GB-mo + $0.75/M reads + $1.50/M writes. DO MySQL $15/mo (1GB RAM/10GB). Aurora MySQL: $0.12/vACU-hr (min 2 vACU ~ $115/mo) + $0.10/GB-mo + $0.20/M IO. Overage: replicas $0.12/vACU-hr.
NoSQL Document DB (MongoDB / DynamoDB)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAtlas M0 Free: 512MB, shared. M10 $57/mo (2GB RAM, 10GB storage). M30 $450/mo. DynamoDB Free: 25 WCU+RCU, 25GB. On-Demand: $1.25/M writes ($1.875 AWS) + $0.25/M reads + $0.25/GB storage + $0.02/GB backup. Overage auto-scales.
Managed Redis / Key-Value Cache Layer
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsUpstash Free: 10k cmds/day, 256MB, TLS. Pro $10/mo includes 100k/day + $0.20/100k cmds. Redis Cloud Free: 30MB, 30 conn. Essentials $5/mo start (100MB). ElastiCache Serverless: $0.125/GB-hr ($90/mo/GB) + $0.20/M EPU + $0.05/GB data. Overage: extra 100MB $0.50/mo.
Object Storage (S3-Compatible)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 Free: 10GB storage, 1M Class A, 10M Class B, 0 egress fees forever. Paid: $15/TB/mo storage + $4.50/M Class A + $0.36/M Class B. B2: First 10GB free, then $6/TB/mo + $0.005/1k download + $0.01/GB egress (1GB free daily). S3: 5GB free 12mo, then $23/TB-mo + $5/M PUT + $0.40/M GET + $0.09/GB egress (first 100GB $0.09). Overage: Infrequent access cheaper.
Automated Backups & Snapshots (Daily/Weekly)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsLitestream/wal-g OSS free + R2 $15/TB/mo. Neon backups included 7d. RDS Snapshots: 100% DB size free backup, extra $0.095/GB-mo + cross-region $0.021/GB. SimpleBackups $9/mo 1 server + storage. Overage: $0.06/GB extra backed-up.
Connection Pooling Layer
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsPgBouncer OSS free: VPS $4-5/mo (Fly/Hetzner). Supabase pooling included. RDS Proxy: $0.015/vCPU-hr ($10.8/mo per vCPU) + DB cost. Example t3.medium proxy ~$21.60/mo. Prisma Accelerate Free 100k queries, Pro $20/mo 1M queries. Overage $5/M queries.
Local Dev DB & CLI Tooling
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsDocker Desktop Free personal (<250 emp). OrbStack Free for personal, Pro $8/mo. TablePlus Free 1 DB, Pro $89 one-time (perpetual). DataGrip $11.90/mo first year, $9.52 second. Neon Local CLI free. No overage infra, just license.
Database GUI & Admin Panel
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitspgAdmin/DBeaver CE free. Beekeeper Ultimate $19/mo per user. TablePlus $89 one-time + $39/mo Teams (shared). Retool Free 3 apps; Standard $15/user/mo for DB GUI + $10/M queries over. Overage: Retool external users $250/mo for 50.
Full-Text Search Index (Elasticsearch/OpenSearch/pg_search)
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsTypesense Cloud Free: 100k docs, 500MB RAM. Growth $40/mo (500k docs, 2GB). Meilisearch Cloud Free 100k docs; $30/mo 1M docs. Algolia Free: 10k records, 1M ops/mo; Growth $250/mo (100k records + $1.50/1k ops over). Elastic Cloud smallest $16/mo (1GB). Self-host ~$10-12/mo VPS cost. Overage: $10/100k extra docs.
Secrets Management for DB Credentials (Vault, Secrets Manager)
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsInfisical Cloud Free: 1000 secrets, 5 members. Pro $19/mo 5 seats unlimited secrets. Doppler Free: 100 secrets, 5 users. AWS Secrets: $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls. HCP Vault: $0.08/vCPU-hr (~$58/mo cluster) + storage. Overage: $0.40/secret extra.
Serverless Cache / Global Key-Value (Momento, KV)
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsMomento Free: 50GB transfer, 50k ops/day, 5 req/sec. Paid $0.15/GB transfer + $0.50/M ops. Workers KV Free: 1GB, 100k reads/day, 1k writes/day; Paid $5/mo + $0.50/M reads + $5/M writes. Upstash Free 10k cmds/day, then $0.20/100k. Overage auto.
Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) & WAL Archiving
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Free 1d PITR, Pro includes 7d. Supabase PITR add-on $100/mo for 7-day window (8GB). RDS PITR: backup storage free up to DB size, extra $0.095/GB-mo. wal-g to R2: $15/TB storage + minimal API calls. Overage: cross-region PITR $0.021/GB.
Read Replicas & Read Scaling
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon replica compute $0.16/compute-hr same as primary (~$12/mo min). Supabase read replica $50/mo (2GB). RDS replica same as primary db.t3.micro $16/mo + $0.01/GB inter-AZ. PlanetScale: 1 replica included Scaler, extra $39/region/mo. Overage: data transfer $0.09/GB.
Schema Migration Tooling (Atlas, Flyway, Liquibase)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAtlas OSS free; Cloud Team $99/mo 10 databases, $199/mo 50 dbs. Flyway Community free; Teams $350/mo ~$3.5k/yr; Enterprise $800/mo ~$9.5k/yr. Bytebase Community free; Pro $70/mo per instance (10 seats). Overage: $20/user/mo extra.
Query Performance Monitoring & Slow Query Insights
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitspganalyze Free: 1 server. Scale $349/mo/server (volume $149/mo for 10). Datadog DBM $70.80 per 100 normalized API hours (~$71/mo per host) + Infra $18/host. New Relic Free 100GB ingest; Pro $49/user/mo + $0.30/GB ingest over. Self pghero free + $5/mo hosting.
Data Transfer / ETL / CDC Ingest (DMS, Airbyte, Fivetran)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsAirbyte OSS free + $10/mo VPS. Airbyte Cloud Free: $0 trial 1M credits; Teams $2.50/credit (1M rows ~1 credit). Fivetran Starter $100/mo + $0.50/M MAR (monthly active rows). AWS DMS Serverless $0.036/vCPU-hr + $0.21/GB log + $0.115/GB storage. Estuary Free 100GB, Paid $0.10/GB after.
Edge / Global Read Cache for DB (Hyperdrive, Turso, LiteFS)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsHyperdrive Free Beta 100k queries/day; Paid $5/mo includes 1M queries + $0.50/M after. Turso Free: 500 DBs, 9GB storage, 500M rows read/mo. Scaler $29/mo (24GB, 750M rows) + $12/100M rows over + $0.15/GB storage over. D1 Free: 5M reads/day, Paid $5/mo + $0.50/M reads.
Managed OLAP / Columnar / Time-Series DB (ClickHouse, TimescaleDB)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsTimescale Free 500MB, Basic $24/mo 8GB + $2/GB over. ClickHouse Cloud Dev $20/mo 300GB storage + $0.22/vCPU-hr, Prod $200/mo min 1TB included. Tinybird Free 1000 req/min; Growth $39/mo 100GB. Redshift Serverless Free 32hrs, then $0.36/RPU-hr (~$50/mo min) + $24/TB-mo storage. Snowflake $20/TB + compute $2/credit.
How this small scale database and data storage checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale database and data storage build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.